• Home «
• News
• «Theme 2010: WOMEN in a Changing World

Theme 2010: WOMEN in a Changing World

Not wanting to seem too forceful in meetings, I often ended up coming across as passive-aggressive. It took me over three years to learn I was paid significantly less than my male colleagues and a few more years to actually get up the courage do something about it. But I did. And I've never looked back.

This is one of our presenters for this year's Summit, Whitney Keyes from the United States of America, talking about how she learned to become more assertive.

And assertiveness was something Whitney just had to learn to excel in her job. She was managing global marketing campaigns for the computer technology giant Microsoft. This meant working directly with senior executives (yes, including Bill Gates) and often representing one of the world's largest companies in the media.

Opportunities
Like us, the Namibian women, Whitney is a product of a changing world. A world where increasing amounts of women are climbing the corporate ladder, establishing successful business ventures or holding leadership positions in government and various organisations.

It is true that we still have a long way to go before women have gained equal standing with men. But the direction is mostly right. In pre-independence Namibia women were poorly represented in all positions of influence. Only two women occupied senior positions in the civil service and no women were school principals, inspectors or heads of departments. Twenty years later 33% of public sector management cadres and 20% of the senior managers at the private sector are women. And - as the then Minister of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, Hon. Marlene Mundunga, remarked in her International Women's Day speech in May - women are also coming up as business personalities. We are quite clearly rising from the shadows of our fathers, brothers and husbands.

Lifelong learning
Not only are women's opportunities in the world changing but the entire world is changing. As we strategise for our careers and business ventures, we do this in an environment that is very different from the one where our mothers established their micro businesses, selling this and that on the side of the thousand and one other responsibilities they had in their lives. We, too, have these responsibilities as caregivers. At the same time, however, we must be able to provide extremely professional service in whatever it is that we have chosen as our career. An amateur will not survive in an age where rapid changes in technology have sped up the phase of life, shrunk the world and made so many events interdependent of each other.

Our expectations, and those of our clients, have increased. To fulfil them we need to be on top of so many skills and developments that lifelong learning is a necessity. Equally important is that we develop and maintain an intergenerational dialogue. The change, you see, is not going to stop. Our children are already experiencing the world different from us.


To learn more about Whitney Keyes, the American presenter mentioned in this article, visit her website on http://www.whitneykeyes.com/

• 2010-08-02 17:52:49 / Theme 2010: WOMEN in a Changing World

Other latest News

• 2010-08-02 17:50:52
  NWS in a nutshell
  What the Namibian Women Summit is and how did it come about?

• 2010-08-02 17:51:27
  Welcome to NWS 2010
  Not to be missed! The 2010 Summit is scheduled for 11th to 13th August. Click here for Summit information and registration form.
  

• 2010-08-02 17:51:59
  Founding Father to launch HOW!
  Brace yourselves for the launch of the House of Women at NWS 2010!
  

• 2010-08-02 17:53:00
  Welcome from the NWS President
  Welcome to the Namibian Women Summit 2010.
  

• 2010-08-02 17:59:06
  NWS Timeline
  From 2006 to 2010 ... see how the Namibian Women Summit has developed over the years!
  

• 2010-08-02 18:01:37
  What will the new organisation be doing?
  House of Women (HOW) is a platform for women empowerment.

• 2010-08-10 15:53:12
  NWS 2010 Speakers and Presenters
  Our list of speakers and presenters is more impressive than ever - including the Founding Father of the Namibian Nation, Dr Sam S Nujoma, who will be launching the House of Women at the NWS Gala Dinner on 12 August 2010.